WP.land Introduction

WP.land is a WordPress hosting provider that is focused on simplicity, and making the experience of using a hosting company as easy as possible, especially for non-technical users.

Services and Specialties

WordPress isn’t just the focus of WP.land, it is the only type of hosting they provide. The entire platform is optimized for serving WordPress sites that run blazingly fast. They also have specially-designed administration software to make setting up and managing a WordPress site as easy as possible.

WordPress is pre-installed on all hosting accounts, as well as a number of premium themes and curated plugins. Along with PHP, which runs WordPress directly, WP.land has made several changes to the traditional LAMP stack. Rather than Apache, which is common to almost all conventional shared hosting providers, WP.land runs the Litespeed web server. Rather than the standard MySQL database, WP.land hosting accounts use MariaDB, a drop-in replacement for MySQL with faster performance and additional features.

A Note About Containerization

WP.land provides this optimized server stack on individual customer-based containers, using proprietary containerization technology. Container technology is fairly new for this type of web hosting, so it deserves a quick explanation here.

Containers are similar to virtual servers, but with considerably less overhead. In some ways they represent a middle ground between shared hosting and virtual private servers. An application and all of its dependencies are bundled together in the container, segregated from other containers the way two virtual machines are separate from each other. However each container does not require its own entire operating system — they connect with the underlying operating system through an API. Containers can be easily copied and deployed, with relatively little hassle – much faster and more cost-effectively than spinning up a virtual server.

Of course, all of this is transparent to WP.land customers — you don’t choose WP.land because you want containerized hosting (probably). You choose WP.land because they provide easy-to-use, high quality hosting at a very low cost. Containerization — along with technologies like Litespeed and MariaDB — is part of what makes this offering possible.

Bottom Line on Server Software

These changes to the conventional WordPress server setup, as well as their proprietary WordPress hosting administration control panel, are designed to make running a scalable, high-performance WordPress site as easy, and cost-effective as possible.

Datacenters and Technology

Many of the newer WordPress-focused hosting services don’t actually run their own servers. However, WP.land does run their own high-end datacenter in Atlanta, GA. All of their servers use solid state drives ( SSD ), for fast read and write times. The servers in the Atlanta datacenters are connected to the internet with high speed lines. This gives them the ability to serve WordPress sites to US-based users at extremely fast speeds. Planned expansions into Europe and Asia will provide high speed page loads to a world-wide audience.

Support and Customer Service

WP.land employs knowledgeable tech support staff, who can help with both hosting server concerns and some WordPress administration issues. Support is via email or phone, and support personnel can be reached 24/7. They have an internal support ticketing system, and we found their response times to email inquiries to be excellent. Tech support and customer service staff is US-based.

They also handle WordPress core updates automatically, which saves you the hassle and risks associated with doing your own upgrades. This helps ensure a high degree of server security and integrity — keeping your WordPress installation up to date is the most important step you can take to keeping your website safe from attacks.

Security and Backups

Physical security at WP.land’s datacenter is taken very seriously. They have armed guards and video cameras monitoring the building at all times. Access is granted only with a biometric keycard. They also have fully redundant power and internet connectivity, and a top-of-the-line fire suppression system. Their network firewall protects against most forms of attack, including DDoS.

Customer websites are automatically backed up several times a day, and backups are stored for thirty days. In the unlikely event anything really terrible goes wrong with your site, you’ll be able to restore in minutes, with little hassle.

Costs and Payment Policies

For what WP.land provides, customer costs are very low. Their entry-level plan is cost-comparable to the most common shared hosting plans, but with better underlying technology. Their more advanced plan is a little less expensive than most comparable VPS plans, providing most of the same benefits while being much easier for non-tech users to administer. Whichever plan you choose, you’ll get a discount for a longer contract.

WP.land accepts all major credit cards, as well as Paypal. They have a 60-day full-refund policy if you are unhappy with their service for any reason.

Conclusion

For a long time, hosting providers have been trying to gain market share by “specializing” in everything. WP.land is taking a different strategy altogether. Rather than hosting every type of website, they are focused solely on WordPress hosting. Their narrow focus has allowed them to design a server environment, and build a support team, that can help you host a fast, secure, and easy-to-run WordPress site at relatively low cost.